Apparatus and methods enhancing call routing to and within call-centers

ABSTRACT

A computerized Internet-Protocol Network Telephony (IPNT) routing system has a routing processor for receiving and forwarding IPNT calls based on information stored in an associated database regarding operation and status of possible destinations for the call. In some embodiments destinations are call centers adapted for receiving IPNT calls at workstations associated with a central processor, and the information in the database at the routing processor is collected and processed at the call centers that are potential destinations for the calls. The information is collected processed and forwarded to the database for the purpose of enhancing call-routing efficiency and accuracy.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED DOCUMENTS

The present patent application is a Divisional application of copendingpatent application Ser. No. 08/948,530 filed Oct. 9, 1997 which is adivisional of Ser. No. 08/928,410 filed Sep. 12, 1997, now U.S. Pat. No.6,064,667, which is a Continuation-in Part (CIP) of application Ser. No.08/866,357, filed May 30, 1997, now U.S. Pat No. 5,940,496, which is aCIP of application Ser. No. 08/802,660, filed Feb. 19, 1997, now U.S.Pat. No. 5,946,387 which is a CIP of application Ser. No. 08/797,418,filed Feb. 10, 1997. The prior applications are incorporated herein intheir entirety by reference now U.S. Pat. No. 6,185,292.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is in the area of telephone call processing andswitching, and pertains more particularly to intelligent call-routingsystems.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Telephone call processing and switching systems are, at the time of thepresent patent application, relatively sophisticated, computerizedsystems, and development and introduction of new systems continues,including Internet-based telephony systems, which are known in the artas Internet Protocol Telephony (IPT) systems. It is also true that theolder telephony call-switching networks, and the more recent Internettelephony systems are beginning to merge, and many believe will one daybe completely merged.

Much information on the nature of such hardware and software isavailable in a number of publications accessible to the presentinventors and to those with skill in the art in general. For thisreason, much minute detail of known systems is not reproduced here, asto do so would obscure the facts of the invention.

One document which provides considerable information on intelligentnetworks is “ITU-T Recommendation Q.1219, Intelligent Network User'sGuide for Capability Set 1”, dated April, 1994. This document isincorporated herein by reference. There are similarly many documents andother sources of information describing and explaining IPT systems, andsuch information is generally available to those with skill in the art.

At the time of filing the present patent application there continues tobe remarkable growth in telephone-based information systems, includingIPT systems, wherein conventional telephone functions are provided bycomputer hardware and software. Recently emerging examples aretelemarketing operations and technical support operations, among manyothers, which have grown apace with development and marketing of, forexample, sophisticated computer equipment. More traditional are systemsfor serving customers of large insurance companies and the like. In somecases organizations develop and maintain their own telephony operationswith purchased or leased equipment, and in many other cases, companiesare outsourcing such operations to firms that specialize in suchservices.

A large technical support operation serves as a good example in thisspecification of the kind of applications of telephone equipment andfunctions to which the present inventions pertain and apply, and atechnical support organization may be used from time to time in thecurrent specification for example purposes. Such a technical supportsystem, as well as other such systems, typically has a country-wide oreven world-wide matrix of call centers for serving customer's needs.Such call center operations are more and more a common practice toprovide redundancy and decentralization.

In a call center, a relatively large number of agents typically handletelephone communication with callers. Each agent is typically assignedto a telephone connected to a central switch, which is in turn connectedto a public-switched telephone network (PSTN), well-known in the art.The central switch may be one of several types, such as Automatic CallDistributor (ACD), Private Branch Exchange (PBX), or PSTN. Each agentalso typically has access to a computer platform having a video displayunit (PC/VDU) which may be adapted, with suitable connectivity hardware,to process Internet protocol telephony calls.

At the time of the present patent application intelligent telephonynetworks and IP networks share infrastructure to some extent, andcomputer equipment added to telephony systems for computer-telephonyintegration (CTI) are also capable of Internet connection andinteraction. There is therefore often no clear distinction as to whatpart of a network is conventional telephony, and what part is IPT.

In conventional telephony systems, such as publicly-switched telephonynetworks (PSTNs), there are computerized service control points (SCPs)that provide central routing intelligence (hence intelligent network).IPNs do not have a central router intelligence, such as a SCP. IPNs,however, have multiple Domain Name Servers (DNS), whose purpose isbasically the same as the routers in intelligent networks, which iscontrolling the routing of traffic. Instead of telephony switches(PBXs), IP switches or IP routers are used.

An organization having one or more call centers for serving customerstypically provides one or more telephone numbers to the public or totheir customer base, or both, that may be used to reach the service. Inthe case of an IP network, a similar organization may provide an IPaddress for client access to services, and there are a number of waysthe IP address may be provided. Such numbers or addresses may bepublished on product packaging, in advertisements, in user manuals, incomputerized help files, and the like.

Routing of calls in intelligent networks, then, may be on severallevels. Pre-routing may be done at SCPs and further routing may beaccomplished at individual call centers. As described above a callcenter in an intelligent telephony system typically involves a centralswitch The central switch is typically connected to a publicly-switchedtelephone network (PSTN), well-known in the art. Agents, trained(hopefully) to handle customer service, man telephones connected to thecentral switch. This arrangement is known in the art as CustomerPremises Equipment (CPE).

If the call center consists of just a central switch and connectedtelephone stations, the routing that can be done is very limited.Switches, although increasingly computerized, are limited in the rangeof computer processes that may be performed. For this reason additionalcomputer capability in the art has been added for such central switchesby connecting computer processors adapted to run control routines and toaccess databases. The processes of incorporating computer enhancement totelephone switches is known in the art as Computer Telephony Integration(CTI), and the hardware used is referred to as CTI equipment.

In a CTI system telephone stations connected to the central switch maybe equipped also with computer terminals, as described above, so agentsmanning such stations may have access to stored data as well as beinglinked to incoming callers by a telephone connection. Such stations maybe interconnected in a network by any one of several known networkprotocols, with one or more servers also connected to the network one ormore of which may also be connected to a processor providing CTIenhancement, also connected to the central switch of the call center. Itis this processor that provides the CTI enhancement for the call center.Agents having access to a PC/VDU connected on a LAN to a CTI processorin turn connected to a telephony switch, may also have multi-mediacapability, including Internet connectivity, if the CTI processor oranother server connected to the LAN provides control for Internetconnectivity for stations on the LAN.

When a telephone call arrives at a call center, whether or not the callhas been pre-processed at a SCP, typically at least the telephone numberof the calling line is made available to the receiving switch at thecall center by a telephone carrier. This service is available by mostPSTNs as caller-ID information in one of several formats. If the callcenter is computer-enhanced (CTI) the phone number of the calling partymay be used to access additional information from a database at a serveron the network that connects the agent workstations. In this mannerinformation pertinent to a call may be provided to an agent.

Referring now to the example proposed of a technical-serviceorganization, a system of the sort described herein will handle a largevolume of calls from people seeking technical information oninstallation of certain computer-oriented equipment, and the calls arehandled by a finite number of trained agents, which may be distributedover a decentralized matrix of call centers, or at a single call center.In examples used herein illustrating various aspects of the presentinvention, the case of a decentralized system of multiple call centerswill most often be used, although, in various embodiments the inventionwill also be applicable to individual call centers.

Even with present levels of CTI there are still problems in operatingsuch call centers, or a system of such call centers. There are waitingqueues with which to contend, for example, and long waits may beexperienced by some callers, while other agents may be available whocould handle callers stuck in queues. Other difficulties accrue, forexample, when there are hardware or software degradations or failures oroverloads in one or more parts of a system. Still other problems accruedue to known latency in conventional equipment. There are many otherproblems, and it is well recognized in the art, and by the generalpublic who have accessed such call centers, that there is much room forimprovement in the entire concept and operation of such call centersystems. It is to these problems, pertaining to efficient, effective,timely, and cost-effective service to customers (users) of call centersystems that aspects and embodiments of the present invention detailedbelow are directed.

Further to the above, IPNT systems at the time of the present patentapplication are much less sophisticated in provision of intelligentrouting, parallel data transfer, supplemental data provision to agents,and the like. The advantages that embodiments of the invention describedbelow bring to conventional telephony systems may also in most cases beprovided to ITP systems and systems in which the form of the networkbetween conventional telephony and IP protocol is blurred.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention a computerizedInternet Protocol Network Telephony (IPNT) call center is provided,comprising a first processor coupled to a wide area network (WAN) andadapted to receive and distribute IPNT calls; and a plurality ofcomputers at operator workstations, each computer having a video display(PC/VDU) coupled to the processor. The processor is adapted to monitortransactional activity of the call center, to process the activityinformation according to selected routines in the processor, and tocommunicate the processed information to a second processor elsewhere inthe WAN. In preferred embodiments communication over the WAN is inTCP/IP protocol. Also in preferred embodiments the first processor andthe plurality of computer stations are connected on a local area networkat the call center. There may also be a data server connected to theLAN, the data server processor running an instance of a databasecomprising data associated with customers. The WAN is in many cases theInternet.

In another embodiment of the invention Internet Protocol NetworkTelephony (IPNT) call-routing system is provided, comprising an initialcall-processing system adapted for receiving IPNT calls from customersover a wide area network (WAN), and including a first processor adaptedfor routing incoming IPNT calls to selected destinations; and a callcenter remote from the call-processing system, the call centercomprising a second processor coupled to a plurality of computerplatforms at operator workstations and adapted to route IPNT calls toindividual ones of the computer platforms, and also connected to WAN. Inthis embodiment the second processor is adapted to monitor transactionalactivity of the call center, to process the activity informationaccording to selected routines, and to communicate the processedactivity information to the first processor over the WAN, and whereinthe first processor uses the processed activity information to selectdestinations to route the incoming IPNT calls. The processorscommunicate over the WAN by TCP/IP protocol. The first processor and theplurality of computer platforms may be connected on a local area networkat the call center, and there may also be data server processorconnected to the LAN, the data server processor running an instance of adatabase comprising data associated with customers. In many cases theWAN is the Internet.

In yet another embodiment an Internet Protocol Network Telephony callprocessing system adapted for routing incoming calls to selecteddestinations is provided, comprising an Internet routing server adaptedto route IPNT calls; and a database connected to the Internet serveradapted for receiving and storing processed information abouttransactions at remote IPNT call centers. In this embodiment theInternet routing server is adapted to select destinations for routingincoming calls based on the stored processed information abouttransactions at the remote IPNT call centers. Again, TCP/IP protocolover the Internet is used in many instances of practicing the invention.

Further still, a method for routing an incoming IPNT call to a selecteddestination is provided, comprising steps of (a) collecting informationat an INPT call center regarding operations of the call center; (b)processing the collected information; (c) transferring the processedinformation to a database associated with a routing processor adaptedfor intercepting and routing incoming calls; (d) receiving incoming IPNTcall at the routing processor; (e) retrieving the processed informationfrom the database; and (f) selecting a destination for the call based onthe processed information retrieved.

The embodiments of the present invention described in enabling detailbelow for the first time provide intelligent routing capabilities tocall-center systems in networks utilizing Internet Protocol NetworkTelephony for commercial purposes such as call-center service for acustomer base.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a system diagram of a call-routing system according to apreferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2A is a block diagram representing communication functionalitybetween equipment groups in embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 2B is a block diagram illustrating a unique call center-levelrouting system in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a process flow diagram depicting steps in a process accordingto a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is another process flow diagram depicting steps in a processaccording to another preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is yet another process flow diagram depicting steps in yetanother preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a system diagram of a call-rerouting system according to anembodiment of the present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

General Description

FIG. 1 is a system diagram of a call-routing system according to apreferred embodiment of the present invention, comprising two callcenters 121 and 122. In this embodiment there may be many more than thetwo call centers shown, but two is considered by the inventors to besufficient to illustrate embodiments of the invention. Each of callcenters 121 and 122 includes a telephony switch (switch 123 for center121 and switch 124 for center 122) providing routing to individual agentstations.

Call centers 121 and 122 in FIG. 1 are CTI-enhanced by virtue of aprocessor connected by a high-speed data link to the associated callcenter switch. At call center 121, processor 223 is connected by link212 to switch 123, and at call center 122, processor 224 is connected toswitch 124 by link 213. Each processor 223 and 224 includes an instanceof a CTI application 207 known to the inventors as T-Server (T-S) 207.Further, each processor 223 and 224 at each call center is in turnconnected to a local area network (LAN). For example LAN 301 is shownconnected to processor 223 in FIG. 1. No equivalent network is shown atcall center 122 for the sake of simplicity, although the architecturedescribed herein for call center 121 may be presumed to be extant atcall center 122 and other call centers as well.

Each call-in center 121 and 122 included in this example also includesat least two telephone-equipped agent workstations, which also each havea user interface (IF) to the associated LAN. Workstation 131 at center121 for example has a telephone 136 connected to central switch 123, anda proximate user interface 331 to network 301. Interface 331 may be aPC, a network terminal, or other system, and typically provides a videodisplay unit (VDU) and input apparatus (keyboard/pointer for example)allowing an agent to view data and make appropriate inputs. Fordescriptive purposes the computer workstation at each agent station willbe termed a PC/VDU.

In like manner workstation 132 illustrated has a telephone 138 connectedto central switch 123 and a proximate PC/VDU 332 providing an agent withdisplay and input capability. For call enter 122 workstations 133 and134 are shown having respectively telephones 140 and 142 connected tocentral switch 124, in turn connected to processor 224 by link 213. Alocal area network (LAN) equivalent to LAN 301 at call center 121 is notshown for call center 122 for the sake of simplicity in illustration,and PC/VDUs for the agents are similarly not shown for call center 122.

As is true with LANs in general, servers of various sorts may beconnected to LAN 301 at call center 121. In FIG. 1 a data server 303, inthis instance including a customer database is shown connected to LAN301. A similar database server may also be connected to a LAN at callcenter 122. The customer database will typically comprise such as thenames, addresses, and other information relating to customers for whomthe call center is established, and also in many instances resourceinformation for agents to access in helping callers with their problems.

In some embodiments of the present invention to be described in enablingdetail below, agents at agent stations interact verbally with clientsvia the telephones at the workstations, and the PC/VDUs are utilized forsuch as screen pops with information about clients, scripts for agentsto follow in aiding clients, and technical information and other dataneeded in interacting with clients. In other embodiments the PC/VDUequipment may be used more comprehensively, such as forvideo-conferencing with clients, receiving, storing and responding toelectronic documents such as e-mail, and for Internet protocol telephony(IPT). In the case of Internet-based and related services, the CTIprocessor, or any other processor connected to the LAN at a call centermay be Internet-connected, and provided with the necessary hardware andsoftware known in the art for providing Internet access to agent'sPC/VDUs also connected on the LAN at the call center.

Because of differences in conventional telephony service (CTS) andInternet telephony, and because the overt mechanism in both systems ismodeled on the perceived, traditional model of telephone calls, aconvention is necessary to distinguish. In the descriptions that follow,for this reason, CTS is referred to as intelligent network telephony(INT) and Internet telephony is referred to as Internet protocol networktelephony (IPNT). This is not intended to imply that all CTS systemsdescribed herein are prior art, or that all IPNT systems described areinventive and unique. These distinctions will be made below as much aspossible in every case described.

The main difference between CTS and IPNT is in the residence of networkintelligence. In INT the firmware generating intelligence is mainlyresiding in network processors, where in IPNT, the firmware for theintelligence mostly resides in the end-equipment, whereas the network isoften referred to as dumb network. Since most of the features of presentinventions reside in the CTI server, known to the inventors as T-Server,and from there control certain network functions in certain ways, it ismostly irrelevant to their application, where the actual intelligenceresides.

One of the variables in routing incoming calls, whether in INT or IPNT,is the skill set of each agent assigned to a workstation. This skill setmay include a unique set of skills, resources and knowledge, such as,but not limited to, language capability, access to technicalinformation, and specific training. In routing calls in a conventionalsystem both at the network and at the call center level, the systemand/or network needs to know such things as the status of any or allcall centers, the availability of each agent, the skill set of eachagent, the number of incoming calls, the number of calls waiting to beanswered, and so forth. In a system using Internet protocol telephonyfor access to agents at call centers the same kinds of information needsto be available, and there needs to be also a way to route IPNT callsbased on the information.

Referring again to FIG. 1, and specifically to call center 121, thereare a number of ways that PC/VDUs 331 and 332 may have access to theInternet, and thereby to IPNT calls as well as to data services and thelike provided at the call center. For example, any one of PC/VDUs at thecall center, or other call center such as center 122, may have a modemconnected to a phone line and software to connect to an Internet serviceprovider. More likely, considering only call center 121. Processor 223or another processor or IP router connected to LAN 301 may have Internetaccess and provide access to stations on the LAN. In specific aspects ofthe invention described below, Internet access and IPNT telephonyrelative to the inventive concepts are discussed in more detail.

In this example, control routines executable on processor 223 for callcenter 123 may access algorithms providing call routing at the callcenter level, and may also access data from data server 303 for use inrouting decisions and the like. Similar routines run on processor 224serving call center 122. In specific aspects of the invention describedbelow, routing of IPNT calls will be discussed as well.

Telephone calls are routed to call centers 121 and 122 over conventionaltelephony lines 105 and 106 respectively from remote origination points(a customer seeking technical aid has placed a call, for example, to anadvertised or otherwise provided 1-800 number). Cloud 100 represents theintelligent telephone network system, and is referred to herein as anetwork cloud. This may be, for example purposes, a regional portion ofthe world-wide network, or may represent the entire world-wide networkof connected telephone equipment. All conventional telephone callsrouted to call-in centers 121 and 122 originate somewhere in networkcloud 100.

In addition to conventional telephone calls, there may be IPNT callsoriginating from computer platforms represented here by platform 127,placed to the call centers through the Internet, an Intranet, or otherdata network, represented by cloud 125, over a link such as link 126shown connecting to processor 223. It will be apparent to the skilledartisan that there are a number of alternative ways Internet and otherdata network access may be provided to stations at call centers. Fordescriptive purposes following descriptions will refer to cloud 125 asthe Internet cloud, although it should be understood that this isexemplary, and there may be other data networks involved.

In this example an incoming conventional telephone call to be routed toa call center is represented by vector 107 into a Service Control Point(SCP) 101. In some embodiments of the invention calls may go directly toone of the call centers illustrated, but in most embodiments an SCP isaccessed first, and network-level routing may be done, wherein incomingcalls may be routed based on information available to the SCP.

SCP 101 typically comprises a telephony switch somewhat more local tothe calling party than the switches at call centers 121 and 122illustrated. SCP 101 is coupled in this example to an adjunct processor103 associated with a call-distribution processor 104. Call distributionprocessor 104 has call statistics describing call distribution betweencall-in centers 121 and 122 (typically over a larger number of call-incenters than two).

An Intelligent Peripheral 102 is provided in this example coupled to SCP101, and its function is to provide initial processing of incomingcalls. This initial processing may be done by voice recognition,eliciting information from a caller such as type of product and modelnumber, language preference for communication with an agent, and muchmore, depending on the nature of the service provided by theorganization providing the call centers.

A processor 208 including an instance of telephony server T-S 207, alsoincluding an instance of a statistical server (Stat Server) 209 iscoupled by two-way data link 214 to the other parts of the system at theinitial call processing and routing system associated with SCP 101. Itwill be apparent to those with skill in the art that the functions of CDProcessor 104, Adjunct Processor 103, IP 102, T-S 207 and Stat Server209 may be accomplished in a variety of ways in hardware and softwaremix. There may be, for example, a single hardware computer coupled tocentral switch 101, and the various servers may be softwareimplementations running on the one hardware system. There may be aswell, more than one hardware system, or more than one CPU providing thevarious servers.

In this embodiment, as described above, conventional calls incoming toSCP 101 are routed to call centers 121 and 122 via PSTN lines 105 and106. The convergence of lines 105 and 106 to SCP 101 and divergence tocall centers 121 and 122 is simply to illustrate that there may beconsiderable switching activity between these points. Processor 208connects to processor 223 and to processor 224 by digital data links 210and 211. Again the convergence is just to illustrate the network natureof these links, which may connect to many SCPs and to many call centersas well. In a preferred embodiment the network protocol is TCP/IP, whichis a collection of data protocols which are not discussed in detailhere, as these protocols are in use and very well-known in the art.There are other protocols that might be used, new protocols may bedeveloped to provide better and faster communication, and other methodsmay be used to speed up communication. For example, Urgent DispatchProtocol (UDP) may be used in some instances, which, for example, allowsdata packets to bypass routing queues.

Although not explicitly shown in FIG. 1, processors at the SCP shown mayhave Internet access into cloud 125, so IPNT calls may be directed tocomputer equipment at the SCP, and, as will be described further below,processes at the SCP may apply to IPNT calls as well as to conventionalcalls.

Processor 208 running an instance of T-S 207 as described above maycontrol routing of calls, both conventional and IPNT at the networklevel, that is, calls received at SCP 101, in the same manner thatprocessor 223 may control routing at central switch 123. In the case ofrouting of IPNT calls by the processes of an intelligent network router,the inventors are not aware of such intelligent routing in the art forIPNT calls, and this functionality is considered by the inventorsunique.

It is emphasized again that not all embodiments of the present inventionrequire all of the elements and connectivity shown in FIG. 1, althoughsome embodiments will use all of the elements and connectivity shown.Also, functionality in various embodiments of the invention described inenabling detail below will differ not in hardware and connectivity inall cases, but in application and execution of unique control routinesin many cases.

Uniform Control of Mixed Platforms in Telephony (3208)

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention unique controlroutines are provided for execution on such as processor 223, processor224 and processor 208, providing communication ability thereby betweencall centers such as centers 121 and 122, and between call centers andinitial call processing centers such as that represented by SCP 101.

FIG. 2A is a block diagram representing a unique communicationcapability provided in a preferred embodiment of the present invention.There are, as described above in the Background section and known in theart, several different kinds and manufactures of call switchingequipment. Each central switch uses a proprietary communication protocolfor CTI applications. In CTI enhancement as known in the art, individualmanufacturers provide processors connecting to their own switches andusing the communication protocols proprietary to those switches. Thecomputer enhancements, then, can serve a single manufacturer's switches,and provide communication between those switches. If a user, however,has multiple call center sites, for example, having equipment fromdifferent manufacturers, a difficult situation arises. If that userdecides on a computer enhancement, depending on which manufacturerprovides the enhancement, the equipment at the other site may quicklybecome obsolete. To communicate with the other site, it may be necessaryto purchase all new equipment for the other site to be compatible withthe computer-enhanced site.

Processors 223, 224, and 208 are shown in FIG. 2A connected by links 210and 211 as in FIG. 1, with additional detail of both software andhardware illustrated in a particular exemplary embodiment. In eachprocessor there is an instance of T-S 207 executable. To communicatewith other devices each processor must have one or more ports configuredto accomplish the communication. The implementation of such ports isrepresented in FIG. 2A by the representation PND 215. PND 215 in eachinstance is a physical network adapter for the network to which it isintended to connect, such as microwave, optical, coaxial, ring-network,and the like, as well as the software drivers required to control thoseadapters.

Layered to each instance of T-Server 207 in each processor is a controlroutine for handling data communication with either an instance oftelephony equipment (switch 123 for example) or another T-server. Hence,in FIG. 2A, each instance of T-server 207 is layered with a TelephonyEquipment Driver (TED) on one side, and an Inter T-Server Driver (ITD)on the other side. Connectivity of an ITD or a TED to a PND is based onthe external connection intended at the PND. For example processor 223is connected on one side to switch 123 by link 212, so TED 216 in theinstance of processor 223 will be configured to drive communication withswitch 223 (according to the make and manufacture of that switch). Onthe other side processor 223 is connected via link 210 to processorsrunning other instances of T-server 207. Therefore ITD 217 connects toPND 215 at link 210.

Although not shown explicitly in FIG. 2A, which follows the architectureof FIG. 1, it will be apparent to those with skill that a processor mayalso be configured with an instance of TED on each side of a instance ofT-Server 207, providing thereby a processor capable of interconnectingtwo central switches of different type, make, or manufacture directly.In this manner processors may be adapted to interconnect centralswitches of various manufacturers and processors running instances ofT-Server 207, and, by providing the correct PNDs, the processors thusconfigured may be adapted to communicate over any known type of datanetwork connection.

In the matter of Internet protocol telephony, in the general descriptionprovided above with reference to FIG. 1, it was described that Internetaccess may be made by processors at either call centers or SCPs in theconventional network, and that functions provided for conventionaltelephony may also be applied to IPNT calls. With regard to FIG. 2A,IPNT calls received at any processor associated with SCP 101 may berouted through processor 208 and via links 210 and 211 to processors 223and 224, where such IPNT data may be provided to agent's stations atassociated call centers. In this process, IP addresses may be alteredand substituted, as a way of routing the IPNT data. For example, an IPNTcall may be directed to processor 208 by one IP address, and the IPNTcall may be found to be from a particular client of the organization towhich the call centers are dedicated. A routing decision may be made atthe SCP such as in processor 208 as to the call center best adapted todeal with the client, and the IP address for a processor at the callcenter may be substituted.

In this manner, according to embodiments of the present invention, asystem is provided for the first time that allows radically differenttelephony systems to be joined in high-functionality integratedintelligent networks.

Escalatory Reactive Call Routing (3207)

FIG. 2B is a block diagram depicting a unique escalatory reactiverouting system 330 according to a preferred embodiment of the presentinvention, which may be implemented on a call center or at the networklevel, such as in call center 121 or such as in network cloud 100 ofFIG. 1. In this routing system, as implemented at the call center level,processor 223 (FIG. 1) is notified when a call is received, and sendsinformation about the call to a routing server 342. Routing server 342is typically implemented as a part of T-server 207, which routes a callto an agent best qualified to answer the call based on predeterminedcriteria. The T-server having the routing server need not necessarily beimplemented on processor 207 as shown in FIG. 1, but could be residentelsewhere in the networked system. Routing server 342 typically directsswitch 123 to route the incoming call to the designated agent.

Database 344 in FIG. 2B is a customer database typically maintained onsuch as data file server 303 (FIG. 1). Routing server 342 comprisescontrol routines which may be executed on processor 223 (FIG. 1) orthere may be a separate processor on network 301 executing the router. Astat server 140 is adapted to track and provide statistical dataconcerning calls made, completed and the like, and to maintain data onagents skill profiles and agent's activities, and to generate reports.Again, stat server 140 may execute on processor 223, or on anotherprocessor connected to network 301. Finally, a network manager 352 isalso connected on the network, and is adapted to the task of managingaspects of LAN 301.

Routing in this embodiment is typically based on (i) the skills set ofthe agent (ii) information relating to the calling party, (iii)activities of the call center, and (iiii) legal or other authorizationheld by an agent. Examples of the skills set of the agent are language,product knowledge, and the like. Examples of calling party informationare products purchased, geographical location and the like. Examples ofcall center activities are number of available agents, calls previouslyhandles by an agent, and the like.

At the same time an incoming call is directed to a particular agent,data retrieved from database 344 is directed on LAN 301 to the proximatevideo display unit (VDU) at the workstation assigned to that agent. Theagent is then enabled to deal with the call in the best possible manner.

It is apparent to the present inventors that the expeditious functioningof routing system 330 is highly dependent on the expeditious functioningof the various elements of the overall system, including, but notlimited to software and hardware elements. These elements include thefunctions of all of the elements shown in FIG. 1, specifically includingall of the communication links, both telephony and digital. If forexample, stat server 340 or database 344 experiences a suddendegradation in service, the routing server is going to be delayed aswell. As another example, there may be an unexpectedly large number ofaccesses to database 344 in a short time, overloading a search engineassociated with the database, and this circumstance could degradeoverall performance in routing. As a further example a partial or totalloss of a communication link, such as digital network link 210, willseverely degrade overall system performance.

By virtue of network connection and interconnection, network manager 352is enabled to track and monitor performance and function of all systemelements, and to report to database 344 and to routing server 342, andthe routing server also has access to other data and statistics via statserver 340 and database 344. Routing server 342 also has access in thisembodiment to multiple routing algorithms which may be stored at any oneof several places in the overall system. An object of the invention inthe instant embodiment is to provide for executing different routingalgorithms based on system performance as reported by network manager352 and in accordance with data available from database 344, stat server340, and received via digital network link 210 as described in furtherdetail below. Database 340, routing server 342, and stat server 340communicate through layered protocol as known in the art, including butnot limited to layers for network-dependent protocol, Internet protocol(IP), User Datagram Protocol (UDP), Simple Network Management Protocol(SNMP), and manager process.

In a preferred embodiment, routing server 342 selects a routingalgorithm to be executed based on degradation in performance of part ofthe call center or components, either hardware or software, in anescalatory manner. The more the system degrades, the more the routerreverts to emergency measures. The selected algorithm preferably reducesor eliminates access to or use of the component or resource adduced tobe degrading in performance.

It will be apparent to those with skill in the art that the inventiondescribed with reference to FIGS. 2A and 2B is not limited to monitoringonly system and component faults. It has broader application. Forexample, algorithms may be stored for operating according to load level.Other algorithms may be selected according to specific times-of-day, andsuch algorithms may be selected based on the time window in a 24-hourperiod. As another example, algorithms may be stored and selectablebased on days of the week. Still other algorithms might be prepared tobe accessed with introduction of new products and the like. Statisticsmay be tracked relative to the percentage of agents free, for example,and a routing algorithm may be accessed for the situation wherein 90% ofagents are busy, routing calls only to the next free agent rather thanfollowing a skill-based routing algorithm. The invention in thisembodiment allows routing algorithms to be selected and executed basedupon a very broad congruence of circumstances, so that a call center maybe operated at best efficiency even as circumstances alter rapidly,including circumstances of hardware and software functionality, asdescribed in specific embodiments above.

In other embodiments of the instant invention escalatory reactive callrouting may be implemented at the network level, with a routerimplemented as a portion of T-S 207 running on processor 208. In thiscase stored routing algorithms may be selected and implemented inconjunction with functionality of network level components, bothhardware and software, and in accordance with call loading into SCP 101.

In the matter of Internet protocol telephony, IPNT calls receivedanywhere in the system can be redirected (routed) by the intelligenceprovided and described relative to conventional telephony, and suchcalls, once received and redirected, may be conducted to final agentdestinations either through the connectivity of the calls centers andthe intelligent network, or redirected by new IP address back into theInternet (or Intranet) and thence to agents equipment by directconnection.

Agent Level Call Routing in Telephony Systems (3200)

Referring now back to FIG. 1, associated with SCP 101 in embodiments ofthe present invention, there is a processor 208 comprising an instanceof a Stats-server 209 and an instance of T-Server 207, which processorcommunicates with other components via two-way data link 214.Communication in this embodiment is as illustrated in FIG. 2A anddescribed in disclosure above relative to FIG. 2A.

In description above reference was made to TCP/IP communication on links210 and 211, and that this protocol is merely exemplary. There are otherprotocols that might be used, new protocols may be developed to providebetter and faster communication, and other methods may be used to speedup communication. For example, User Datagram Protocol (UDP) may be usedin some instances, which, for example, allows data packets to bypassrouting queues.

In conventional systems known to the present inventors, routing at thenetwork level, that is, in the network cloud 100 associated withswitching equipment receiving incoming calls and routing these calls tocall centers, is typically done with reference to statistical history ofcall center activity, and routing to call centers is to queues at thecall centers. In this conventional method, activity at each call centerin a network is tracked and provided to service control points, andincoming calls are routed to the calls centers based on the latestavailable history. As an example of such a history algorithm, if thereare two call centers in the system, and the latest statistical historyindicates that call center 1 has received twice as many calls as callcenter 2, calls will be preferentially routed to call center 2 at aratio to balance the activity. In this conventional system calls arerouted from the network level to queues at the call center level. Once acall is received in a queue at a call center, the caller waits until hiscall is answered in order.

Referring now to FIG. 1, in a unique embodiment of the presentinvention, termed by the inventors Agent Level Routing, actualtransactions at the call center level, rather than historical summaries,are reported from call centers to service control points, and calls arerouted to agents rather than to queues or groups. Referring to callcenter 121 as an example, transactions of central switch 123 aremonitored by T-Server 207 executing on processor 223, and shared on acontinuing basis with T-Server 207 running on processor 208 associatedwith SCP 101. This activity data is stored and accessible with referenceto stat server 209 on processor 208. Activity of central switch 124 atcall center 122 is reported via link 211 also to T-Server 207 in cloud100 (which represents one instance of possible multiple SCPs andT-Servers in the network. Each T-Server may serve more than one SCP).Actual activity at all call centers is reported to all SCPs in thismanner.

In addition to this actual call center activity data, data relative toagent skills and the like is also provided and stored at the networklevel. For example, when an agent logs in at a call center, theavailability of this agent is reported to the network level, and thestat-servers at the network level have agent profiles for reference inmaking routing decisions.

In the instant embodiment an incoming call 107 at SCP 101 is processed,for example, with the aid of IP 102. With information about the needs ofthe caller, T-S 207 makes reference to the stat-server data of actualagent status at call centers, which is continuously updated via digitalnetwork links 210 and 211, for example, from call centers, and to theavailable data on agent profiles and the like, which is updated as well,but at perhaps longer time increments. T-Server 207 makes a routingdecision to an agent based on the best fit with the latest availabledata.

Once the routing decision has been made at the network level, thedestination decision for the call is transferred by T-Server 207 runningon processor 208, for example, at the network level, to T-Server 207 atthe call center where the agent to which the call is to go is resident.For exemplary purposes assume the destination is an agent at call center121 (FIG. 1), and the destination information is sent to T-S 207 runningon processor 223.

The call is received on line 105 at the call center and matched with thedestination data received by T-S 207 on link 210. T-S 207 on processor223 now routes the call to the agent.

Call-center-level routing in embodiments of the present invention wasdescribed above, and may be done in the instant embodiment as well. Forexample, T-S 207 running on processor 223 has received a call on line105 and matched that call with data received on link 210, which dataincludes an agent destination for the call based on the best fitavailable to T-S 207 running on processor 208 at the network level. Inthe time since the original routing occurred and the call and data havebeen received at call center 105, the situation may have changed. Theagent to which the call was routed may have, for example, logged off,and is no longer available. T-S 207 at processor 223, executing arouting algorithm, may now reroute the call to the agent who is a nextbest fit and available at call center 121.

As a further example of agent level call routing, consider a callreceived at SCP 101 from a customer who speaks Spanish, and indicates apreference for a Spanish-speaking agent. In FIG. 1 the pool ofSpanish-speaking agents is represented by inclusion area 241,encompassing workstations 132 at call-in center 121 and workstation 134at call-in center 122. An agent profile provided to stat-server 209 atthe network level for each of these agents indicates the Spanish skill.The continuously updated transaction information from call centers 121and 122 indicates the agent at telephone 138 is available, while theagent at telephone 142 is not available. Given this information, thecall will be routed to call center 121 on line 105, and the data as toagent destination will be sent to T-S 207 at call center 121 via digitallink 210.

In summary, in the instant embodiment, agent level routing isaccomplished by providing actual call center agent status on acontinuing basis to Service Control Points along with agent skillprofiles and the like. Incoming calls are then routed to agents, ratherthan to queues at call centers. At the call center to which a call isrouted with destination data for an agent, a further opportunity forrouting allows such calls to be rerouted at the call center level.

In the matter of IPNT calls which may be directed first to a processorassociated with a SCP in an intelligent network, given the origin of thecall, just as is available form an ANI field, for example, in aconventional telephony call, decisions may be made as to agent levelrouting in a manner similar to the decisions made for conventionalcalls. It is only the mechanism for directing the IPNT calls thatdiffers.

Moreover, IPNT calls directed to a processor associated with a SCP maybe processed by an IP in an automatic manner, even including voiceresponse, eliciting further information from the caller, which may thenbe factored into the routing of the calls.

It should also be understood that reception of and routing of IPNT callsneed not be done at the same equipment and using the same software as isused for conventional telephony. Entirely separate centers may well beprovided in various embodiments of the invention for handling IPNTcalls. Internet servers may be provided for example, wherein adjunctprocessors, IP functionality, and the like is provided for IPNT in amanner parallel to that described herein for conventional telephony. Inthe matter of call center operation and management the idea of a dumb IPnetwork may be just that. Intelligence is needed and preferred formanaging large call volume to a wide range of possible destinations forbest customer service.

Parallel Data Transfer and Synchronization (3201)

In another aspect of the present invention enhanced functionality isprovided in routing and processing telephone calls from Service ControlPoints (SCPs) and other origination points at the network level or atother call centers established for servicing callers seeking service.This enhanced functionality enables agents at such call-in centers tohave immediate access to information derived both from callers and fromstored data. In descriptions below of the instant embodiment, assumptionof SCP 101 in the network cloud and call center 121 is made forprinciple purposes of illustration.

In descriptions above, referring now to FIG. 1, an intelligentperipheral (IP) 102 was described, serving to aid in initial processingof calls from persons seeking services from an organization providingsuch services from one or more call-in centers. In the abovedescriptions also, such callers were referred to as customers, followinga continuing example utilizing an organizational structure having atechnical service call-in operation for such as a computer equipmentmanufacturer.

Following the example of persons calling in to seek technical servicesin installing and/or configuring computer-related products, when such acaller first connects (FIG. 1, vector 107, SCP 101), initial processingwill typically include eliciting information from the caller relative tosuch as caller preferences and relationship of the caller to the serviceprovider's customer database. For example, the caller may have justpurchased a model of one of the provider's products, meant to beinstalled in or connected to a particular make and model computer, andis experiencing difficulty in installing the product and making itfunction properly with the computer. In another instance such a callermay have had the provider's product for some time, and is only recentlyexperiencing difficulty.

Most manufacturers provide a service whereby a customer may register aproduct, and in the process of registration a range of information fromthe customer is solicited, which will typically include the exact natureof the product in question, including model number, and also thecharacteristics of the computer (in this example) to which the customerhas installed or is attempting to install the product. If a customer hasregistered his/her purchase, that information will typically be recordedin the customer database, which, referring to FIG. 1, may be stored onData File Server 303 connected to LAN 301, to which processor 223running an instance of T-S 207 is also connected. In other instancesthere may be other information stored in the customer database. Forexample, in the case of an insurance company, the customer's name andaddress, policy number, and the like will be in the database.

If there is information about a call in a customer database at a callcenter, it will be advantageous to both the customer and the serviceprovider to access that information and provide same to the agent whohandles the customer's call. Such information cannot be retrieved,however, until and unless some correlation is made between the incomingcall and the database.

In the instant embodiment of the invention, which is exemplary only,initial processing is used incorporating IP 102 to elicit informationfrom a customer. This may be done preferably by recorded query and voicerecognition. In such a system a call is answered, and a menu system isused to categorize the caller and to elicit and record sufficientinformation to enable routing (as described above) and hopefully tocorrelate a customer with an existing database. By recording is meantenrolling the nature of the responses in some form, not necessarily byvoice recording. For example, a typical initial processing transactioninvolves a recorded query to the caller such as “Do you prefer Spanishor English”. In some locales the query might be phrased in a languageother than English. The caller is requested to respond typically byselecting a key on the touch-tone pad of his/her telephone. In manyinstances now as well, voice recognition is built into the initialprocessing machine intelligence, and the customer is instructed inverbal response, such as: “Say Yes or No”. The IP in this caserecognizes the response and codes data accordingly.

Information derived from a caller in such initial processing inconventional systems, as has been described herein above, is coded andsent with the routed call, to be dealt with at the call center to whichthe call is routed after the call is received. In instant embodiments ofthe present invention, such data, and in some cases other data, isrouted to a call center in parallel with the routed call, over a digitalnetwork link, allowing the data to precede the call in most cases. Thedata is re-associated with the call at the call center in a uniquefashion described below. This parallel data transfer also makes thetransfer switch-independent.

Referring again to FIG. 1, an instance of T-Server 207 is running onprocessor 223 connected to central switch 123 of call center 121.Processor 223 is connected to digital data link 210, and switch 123 isconnected to the PSTN line 105. In the exemplary embodiment there is aninstance of T-Server 207 also running on processor 208 associated withSCP 101. In the instant embodiment T-S 207 at processor 208 requests asemaphore from TS 207 at processor 223 at the call center level. Thesemaphore is a virtual routing point in the call center, that isassociated with the destination of the call, but is not the same as thedestination of the call. Also, the semaphore is freed as soon as thecall is completed. Once the semaphore is returned, the routed call isforwarded to switch 123 in this example over line 105 to the destinationassociated with the semaphore. Data associated with the call, which maybe data elicited from a caller with the aid of IP 102, is not coded andsent with the call, however, as in the prior art, but rather transferredto T-S 207 at processor 223 over digital network line 210.

As digital network link 210 is generally a faster link than telephoneline 105, the data associated with a forwarded call will typicallyarrive before the call. This is not, however, a requirement of theinvention. The data sent over link 210 to T-Server 207 on processor 223includes not only data associated with the call, but the semaphore asdescribed above. The call received on line 105 is not transferreddirectly to a final destination but to a semaphore routing point. Whenthe call and the data are available, the call center T-Server 207associates the call with the data by the knowledge of the semaphore towhich the call has been associated. From the semaphore routing point thecall is routed on to the final destination.

The semaphore can be accomplished in a number of ways. For example, thecall can be directed to a virtual number and the data may have thevirtual number in one field of the data protocol. The semaphore couldalso be an agent's extension number, but the call is still routed to asemaphore control point to be associated with the data before beingrouted on to the agent. Those with skill in the art will recognize thatthe semaphore association may be made in other ways as well.

The data typically in this embodiment is sent via network 301 to a VDUof the network interface at the operator's workstation to which the callis finally routed. This may be, for example, IF 331 or 332 in FIG. 1.Moreover, data associated with the call and transferred to T-S 207 atthe call center may be used to associate the caller with the customerdatabase in Data File Server 303, and to retrieve further data which mayalso be forwarded to the VDU at the agent's workstation. As describedabove, it will most usually be the case that the data will arrive beforethe call, and correlation with a customer database may therefore be donebefore the call arrives.

The re-association (synchronization) of the call and the data at arerouting point also affords an opportunity for further re-routing.There will be, as described above in the section on agent-based routing,some calls wherein the agent to which a call is originally has becomeunavailable in the time wherein a call is transferred. In this caseT-Server 207 may re-route the call from the semaphore point to anotheragent, and send the data to the new destination.

It is not strictly necessary in the instant embodiment that the data betransferred by another instance of T-Server as described in thepreferred embodiment immediately above. The call forwarded and the datatransferred may in fact be sent by an originating entity such as anothercall center (i.e. PBX), an SCP or IP (network IVR), or some other IVRwhich may or may not be in the network.

In the matter of IPNT calls received at processors associated with SCPs,whether the SCPs are adapted to handle both conventional and IPNT calls,or just IPNT, data elicited from the caller may be prepared and providedby a separate link to a call center, and re-associated with the IP callredirected to an agent at the call center, or to a lower-level routingpoint at the call center, where both the call and the data may bererouted. In this fashion all of the advantages of the inventiondescribed for conventional telephony may also be provided for IPNT.

Statistically-predictive and Agent-predictive Call Routing (3202)

In still another embodiment of the present invention predictive routingis incorporated into machine intelligence to expedite routing in a mostcost-effective manner. Predictive routing according to embodiments ofthe present invention is based on knowledge of latency experienced inequipment while implementing certain operations, together withreasonable, but non-obvious assumptions that may be made to expediteoperations. It is in implementing the assumptions that the inventionslie in the instant aspects and embodiments of the invention.

Referring again to FIG. 1, in the general case T-Server 207 running onprocessor 208 does call routing for calls incoming at SCP 101. Thisrouting is done with the aid of data stored at stat-server 209, whichmay be data obtained from call centers on some regular basis.

In the instant embodiment related to group-predictive routing, incomingcalls are routed to groups at call centers (call center 121 forexample). In routing calls to groups, the goal is to route an incomingcall to the group which has the lowest projected handling time for thecall. The algorithm, for example, for handling time may be the presentnumber of calls in the group queue times the historical average calllength.

In this embodiment the projected handling time is extrapolated on pasthistory and the last action which occurred, and is re-computed each timefeedback from the group is received. The predictive nature is derivedfrom the fact that each time a call is routed, an assumption is madethat the new call is added to the queue at the group to which it routed,without waiting for the call center to return the information, whichinvolves latency. For example, when a call is received at SCP 101 (FIG.1), there is a finite time involved before a routing decision may bemade. Once the call is routed, there is a delay (latency) before thecall is received at the call center and added to the group queue (inthis example). There is a further delay for T-Server 207 to be cognizantof the arrival of the call. Then there is a delay until the time thatT-Server 207 at processor 207 sends updated group queue data to T-Server207 at processor 208, which updates the historical data at stat-server209.

The overall latency and delay until historical data may be updated atthe network level may vary, but an exemplary assumption may be made forpurposes of illustration. Assume the overall delay between actualupdates is twenty seconds. If calls are being received at the SCP at therate of ten calls per second, two hundred calls will be received to berouted in the time between updates of historical information upon whichrouting decisions are made. In the group-predictive embodimentdescribed, each time a call is routed at the network level, anassumption is made that the call is actually received at the call entergroup queue, and the data (stat server 209) is recalculated based onthat assumption. The next call received is then immediately routed basedon the recalculated data based on the assumption. The update thateventually arrives is used to readjust the database to reality, and callrouting continues between updates based on the assumptions made.

In the case of routing calls to logical destinations wherein furtherrouting is done at the call center level, as described above foragent-based call routing, wherein agent status is reported to thenetwork level, predictive routing according to an embodiment of thepresent invention may be done similarly to the predictive group routingdescribed above. In the agent routing case incoming calls areimmediately routed with an assumption that the agent to which the callis routed is then busy, and the status is corrected when actual agentstate is returned.

FIG. 3 is a process flow diagram depicting the decision and action flowfor a predictive routing process according to the instant embodiment ofthe invention. At step 401 action is precipitated on a next call to berouted. Action is typically controlled in this embodiment by an instanceof T-Server 207 running on a processor at the network level. At step 403current statistics are consulted, which, in the case of group levelrouting comprises an indication of projected handling time for eachgroup in the decision set to which calls may be routed.

At step 405 the call is routed based on the statistics available. Atstep 407 it is determined whether or not a real update to the statisticshas been received. If Yes, at step 409 the statistical data is updatedto reflect the real information, correcting all assumptions since thelast real update, if any correction is necessary. Then control passes tostep 411, where statistics are updated based on the routed call as well.

If a real update is not yet received, at step 411 the statistical datais updated based on an assumption that the call just routed wascompleted, and the call is added to the statistics, which arerecalculated based on the assumption. Then a next call is taken to berouted at step 401.

In the case of agent level routing the process flow is much the same asthat shown in FIG. 3, except calls are routed at step 405 based on agentstatus, and updates are based on agent status. That is, when a call isrouted, the assumption is that the agent is then busy. Agent status isupdated to real data as real data is reported back to network level fromcall centers. If no real data comes back, an assumption based onstatistical call length is used to ‘best-guess’ re-availability of thatagent.

Group level predictive call routing may be done for conventional callcenters that are capable of reporting only historical data to thenetwork level. Predictive call routing based on agent status is onlypossible in the unique case wherein actual status of call centerswitches may be reported to network level.

It will be apparent to those with skill in the art that predictive callrouting may be applied to directing and redirecting of IPNT calls aswell as to routing conventional telephony calls as described above. Thedifferences are only in the details of the connectivity and dataprotocols, all of which is well-known in the art. The inventive subjectmatter in predictive routing is in the decisions made based onpredictive assumptions, not in the nature of the call or theorganization of data packets and the like.

Dynamic Re-routing (3203)

In yet another aspect of the present invention, dual routing isperformed. Reference is made again to FIG. 1, wherein a network levelsystem shown in cloud 100 is enabled to perform original routing byvirtue of an instance of T-Server 207 running on processor 208. In theinstant embodiment routing is done at the network level by any of themethods discussed above. That is to group level, agent level, logicalapplication, and so on. Original routing, however, is not done to theactual destination. Rather calls are routed to a call-center-levelrouting point, and data is sent to the call center via the digital datalink, such as link 210 to processor 223 running an instance of T-Server207 and connected to switch 123. The data sent comprises an indicationor instruction of how the call should be treated.

Whenever a call is routed to a call center, it is never certain that bythe time the actual call arrives, the destination will still beavailable, or the best fit for the call. There are many reasons forthis. For example, because of latency in transmission and so forth,other calls may be routed to the same destination in the interim. Also,in many systems switches at the call center level are also acceptinglocal calls as well as calls routed from the network level. In otherinstances some equipment malfunction of fault may misroute one or morecalls. The uncertainty of availability when the call arrives is thereason for the instant embodiment of the invention.

At the call center routing point the call is synchronized with whateverdata is sent, and a second routing request is generated. This secondrequest is referred to by the inventors as “double-dipping”. The secondrouting request is made to a local router running typically as afunction of the instance of T-Server 207 executing on such as processor223 (FIG. 1).

Because the local router is closer to the requested destination, andbecause it arbitrates all incoming calls, it can confirm the originalrouting assuming the original destination is still free, or it canre-route the call if the destination is no longer available, or queuethe call, etc.

FIG. 4 is a process flow diagram depicting a process flow in the“double-dip” embodiment of the present invention described herein. Atstep 413 a call is received at the network level. At step 415 initialprocessing is accomplished, which may include eliciting information fromthe caller. At step 417 the network-level router is called, and a bestfit destination is determined for the call based on the informationavailable at the network level.

At step 419 the call is forwarded, but not to the best-fit destinationdetermined. The call is forwarded rather to a routing point at the callcenter local to the best-fit destination. Data associated with the call,including the best-fit destination determined in step 417 is forwardedto the call center via a digital data link such as link 210 in FIG. 1.At step 421 the call is received at the call center routing point.

At step 423 it is determined whether the originally routed destinationis still the best destination according to information at the callcenter level. If so the call is forwarded to the original destination atstep 427. If not, the call is re-routed based on local information bythe local router.

It will be apparent to the skilled artisan that dynamic rerouting, likeother aspects of the present invention, may apply to IPNT calls as wellas to conventional telephony as described above. IPNT calls may bedirected to selected destinations, synchronized with data perhapsprovided by a different route, and the redirected, even several times ifnecessary.

External Positivistic Forward Transfer in Call routing Systems (3204)

In yet another embodiment of the present invention calls are routed tocall centers and data passed in a switch-independent manner, similar tothat described above in the section entitled Parallel Data Transfer andSynchronization. In the previous description, however, the instance ofT-Server running at the network level requests a semaphore from the callcenter. When the semaphore is returned, the call is routed and data istransferred on the digital network link, the data including thesemaphore, which allows the data to be synchronized with the call at thesemaphore point at the call center level.

In the instant embodiment, time to route and transfer is improved byhaving the instance of T-Server running at the network level (onprocessor 208 in FIG. 1, for example) co-opt a semaphore, based on thebest available information then at the network level. This presumptionby the router in the T-Server at the network level eliminates the timerequired for negotiation with the T-Server at the call center. Thesemaphore assumed by the network level T-Server is freed later when CTIinformation is returned that the call was correctly processed.

As in the previous description, when the routed call arrives at the callcenter semaphore point, the data, by virtue of having an indication ofthe semaphore included, is synchronized with the call and the call isforwarded to the destination. Data may be provided to a VDU at theagent's workstation at the destination via LAN connection as shown inFIG. 1.

FIG. 5 is a process flow diagram indicating steps in practicing thisembodiment of the invention. At step 501 a call is received. At step 503initial processing is performed. At step 505 the router at the networklevel consults a stat-server (see element 209, FIG. 1) for a best-fitdestination. At step 507 the router selects a semaphore destinationbased on the information in step 507. At step 509 the call is routed tothe call center semaphore point and associated call data is routed via aseparate data link (see link 210, FIG. 1) to the call center. At step511 the data and the call are synchronized at the routing point. Furtherstep are as indicated above in the section titled Parallel Data Transferand Synchronization.

It will be apparent to the skilled artisan as well that positivisticforward transfer may apply to intelligent routing of IPNT calls, just asit applies to conventional telephony calls as described in this section.

Agent-initiated Dynamic Requeuing (3206)

In yet another aspect of the present invention a method is provided forrerouting calls from agent level, wherein the agent discovers, havingreceived a call and interacted with the caller, that the call wasmisrouted, or needs attention by another qualified agent. By misroutedin this context is meant that for whatever reason the agent thatreceived the call is unable to provide the service the caller wants orneeds. The call may have been physically misrouted due to some error inhardware or software, so it is handled by a different agent than to whomit was originally routed, or, the call may have gone to the right agent,but the caller gave the wrong information, or insufficient information,for the system to get the call to an agent able and ready to provide theneeded service, or, during the call, need arises for an agent withspecific skills or knowledge.

In this embodiment a first agent has received the call and has discernedfrom the caller that another agent is required to handle the call.Potentially the agent also has a VDU with the caller's data displayedand input apparatus (keyboard, pointer) with which to communicate withthe local T-Server.

In the conventional case the agent would be limited in options. Theagent would transfer to or conference a physical phone number on thelocal or a remote central switch. The Automatic Call Distributor (ACD)on that switch would requeue the call. If the ACD were configured as anetwork ACD the call could potentially be distributed to other sites,but network ACD products typically work only between switches of thesame manufacture. Also, the caller may have to wait again the full queuetime.

In the instant embodiment of the present invention, by virtue of thepresence and interconnectivity of the local instance of T-Server runningon a processor (223, FIG. 1) connected to the local switch (123, FIG.1), also connected to the agent's equipment by LAN 301, and using uniquecontrol routines provided in T-Server 207, the agent hands the call backto a local or a network routing point, potentially with added dataelicited from the caller to better aid in further routing.

This operation is essentially agent-initiated double-dipping ala thedescription above in the section entitled Dynamic Rerouting. At thererouting point rerouting of the call is requested of the local instanceof T-Server 207, and the call is redistributed. The agent does not knowwho is available where for this transfer, and ACD is not involved. Theagent, however, in this embodiment of the invention may have a choice ofselecting a cold, warm, or conference transfer, which the agent may doby any convenient input which has been programmed into the controlroutines in the preferred embodiment.

In a cold transfer, the agent simply sends the call back to thererouting point with whatever new data can be added, and the call isthen transferred to a new agent directly without any participation bythe first agent. In a warm transfer, the first agent is connected to thenext agent to whom the call is re-routed before the caller is connected,allowing the first agent to confer with the next agent before thecaller. In a conferenced transfer the first agent and the caller areconnected to the next agent at the same time.

It will be apparent to the skilled artisan that agent-initiatedre-routing may apply to intelligent routing of IPNT calls, just as itapplies to conventional telephony as described herein. For example, anagent may ultimately receive an IPNT call at his/her PC/VDU, either withor without a screen pop of data pertaining to the client placing thecall and/or to scripting for the agent to follow in handling the call.It may become apparent to the agent that the call has been miss-routed,or would, for whatever reason, be better handled by another agent. Byvirtue of adaptive software executing at the agent's station or at aconnected processor, or both, such a call may be handed back to arouting point with whatever additional data the agent may haveascertained, and then be rerouted to a (hopefully) better destinationbased on the original and\or new data.

Number Pool Data and Call Synchronization

In yet another aspect of the present invention, a unique routing methodis provided for rerouting calls between call centers while minimizingthe number of destination numbers required for the purpose. It iswell-known in the art that the overall cost of operating a call centeris strongly influenced by the number of destination numbers that have tobe maintained to provide for peak traffic. In this aspect of theinvention two or more call centers are assigned unique number pools ofdestination numbers that are used by a router in a sequential order toreroute calls between call centers.

Referring now to FIG. 6, three call centers 501, 502, and 503 areillustrated having each an incoming telephone line over which calls outof network cloud 100 are originally routed. Line 521 carries calls tocall center 501, line 522 to call center 502, and line 523 to callcenter 503. A service control point (SCP) 101 is shown in network cloud101 with a vector 107 representing incoming calls that are initiallyprocessed, then routed to one of the three call centers.

It will be apparent to those with skill in the art that there may bemore than one SCP sending calls to each call center, as there may bemultiple 800 numbers used, the network may take any of several forms,and there may be more than the three call centers shown. The simplifiedrepresentation of FIG. 6 is for purpose of illustration. There may alsobe other equipment in the SCP and a variety of protocols utilized incall processing and original routing.

It is unfortunate but true that not all calls routed to a call centerare correctly routed, and may be handed over to agents at the callcenter where originally routed. A certain percentage of calls will bediscovered to have been incorrectly routed, and to require rerouting toanother call center. There may be any number of reasons for incorrectrouting, and the reasons are not pertinent to the present aspect of theinvention. What is important in this regard is that some calls will haveto be rerouted.

In a conventional system, calls originally routed are sent to adestination number at a call center by a semaphore system, as has beendescribed above, and sufficient destination numbers must be assigned andmaintained at each call center to account for peak traffic. At the callcenter, calls are typically rerouted to agents at extensions at the callcenter, based on origination information and preprocessing informationelicited at the SCP. The process of matching calls arriving at a callcenter with call data, and further routing calls to agents, and thenclearing the semaphore so the destination number is free to be usedagain typically takes about twenty seconds.

The time of twenty seconds to handle an incoming call stronglyinfluences the number of destination numbers that must be maintained.For example, if twenty incoming original calls per second are to behandled, a call center will need 400 destination numbers to allow twentyseconds to handle each call.

I like manner, in a conventional system, calls that have to be reroutedwill each take the twenty second processing time, and additionaldestination numbers will have to be maintained for the reroutingtraffic.

In the embodiment of the present invention illustrated by FIG. 6 a mainre-router 510 is provided connected by a digital network link 511 tocall center 501, by digital network link 512 to call center 502, and bydigital network link 513 to call center 503. In practice, actual routingis accomplished, as known in the art, by control routines executed on acomputer platform, known typically in telecommunications art as aprocessor. In the description herein the term router is meant toencompass all of hardware/software characteristic of routing, thusreference is made to router 510.

In this embodiment the connection from router 510 to each of the callcenters is through dedicated processors (514, 515, and 516 respectively)further connected to the respective call centers by CTI links 504, 505,and 506, and each running an instance of T-server 207 describedpreviously. This is a preferred embodiment, but in some embodiments theconnection may be directly to the switch at the call center, assumingthat the call center switch is adapted to execute the necessary controlroutines in conjunction with router 510 as described more fully below.Further, in this embodiment call centers 501, 502, and 503 areinterconnected by telephone lines 525 and 527. These lines arepreferred, but not strictly required in practicing the invention, ascalls may also be rerouted between call centers back through networkcloud 100.

It will be apparent to one with skill in the art that there may be manymore than three call centers such as 501 connected to the network. Inthis instant embodiment there are only three call centers shown,however, this number is deemed sufficient for the purposes ofillustrating an embodiment of the present invention.

In conventional network routing systems, as described above, destinationnumbers are assigned to a typical call center, and it to thesedestination numbers that incoming calls are routed. These destinationnumbers are phone numbers paid for by the company that operates theparticular network. A typical call center may have many hundreds ofdestination numbers assigned to it. In a typical embodiment, eachdestination number costs about one dollar per month to maintain. In thecase of a large network there may be many call centers, each having manyhundreds of destination numbers that are generating costs to thecompany.

In the present embodiment of the invention unique number poolassignments are made to each call center interconnected by router 510,and used sequentially for rerouting of calls between call centers.

In the instant embodiment incoming calls are routed to various callcenters, such as call center 501, via Telephony lines 521, 522, and 523,as described above. The call center destination to which a call will besent is based on information obtained from the caller at SCP 101. Callcenter 501 having received a call, then sends a Call Arrival Message(CAM) to main router 510. Main router 510 uses the information providedin the CAM to make a routing decision. Main router 510 may also, in someembodiments, request additional information by sending a Route RequestMessage. A RRM would typically access additional information related tothe caller that may be stored on a database or file server somewhere onthe network. After a RRM is received, a Route Request Response (RRR) issent back to main router 510. If main router 510 determines that thecall has been routed properly, then the call is forwarded on to it'sfinal destination such as an agents extension, etc. In this caseconventional destination numbers would apply, and a semaphore would besent back to the origination point when that particular call has beenforwarded freeing it's destination number for the next call. Thisprocess takes approximately 20 seconds over conventional network lines.

However, if it is determined that a more appropriate call center such ascall center 503 would best handle the call that arrived at call center501, the call is rerouted to call center 503. Router 510 maintains adata set (pool) of unique destination numbers assigned to each connectedcall center for the purpose of handling the rerouted traffic. These arenot the same destination numbers used by origination points in thenetwork for sending original calls to call centers. It is not requiredthat there be any sequential association in the actual destinationnumbers. What is required and maintained by router 510 is that thedestination numbers at each call center be identified in a sequentialorder. For example, there is a first number for center 501 a secondnumber for center 501, and so on, up to a last number for center 501.The same is true for numbers assigned in a unique pool to call center502 and call center 503.

Consider as a very simple example that the unique pool of reroutingdestination numbers for call center 502 has three numbers designated forour purpose as A, B, and C. A call arrived at call center 501, and it isdetermined that the call must be rerouted to call center 502. This callis sent to destination number A. A second call arrives at call center501 for which it determined that rerouting to call center 502 is proper.This call will be sent to destination number B at call center 502.Similarly a call then arrives at call center 503 for which it isdetermined that rerouting to center 502 is needed. This call is reroutedto destination number C at call center 502. Now, the next call at eithercall center 501 or 503 for which rerouting to call center 502 is neededis sent to destination number A at center 502.

As operation continues, calls rerouted to call center A are sentsequentially to the identified numbers in the unique number poolassociated with call center 502, always returning to the first after thelast is used, then proceeding again through the pattern. At the sametime, calls arriving at either center 501 or 502, to be rerouted to callcenter 503, are sent sequentially to identified numbers at center 503,and calls rerouted from 503 and 502 to 501 are sent sequentially toidentified unique numbers at 501.

As previously described, there may be many more than the three callcenters shown, and there may be many more than three destination numbersassigned to each call center in the unique rerouting destination numberpool. The sequencing may be quite complex, but, at each call center, theunique numbers are used in a sequential pattern so that after one numberis used, it is not reused again until all of the other numbers assignedto that call center for the purpose of rerouting are used once more.

There is another difference between the rerouting and the originalrouting. That is that the origination and the final destination of acall are both known in the rerouting, and a rerouted call sent to one ofthe numbers in the unique rerouting pool may be therefor almostimmediately handed off to an agent, or to a queue for an agent. Theprocessing time is about one second. The quantity of destination numbersnecessary for each call center in the unique pool is thus one numbergreater than the number of calls that can be routed by main router 510in one second. Typically router 510 will be sized based on empiricaldata and statistics. If, in a hypothetical situation router 510 iscapable of rerouting 100 calls per second, then the quantity ofdestination numbers for each call center is theoretically 101, to besure that each number used has a full second to clear before it is usedagain. In practice, a margin for safety may be employed by providing aquantity of destination numbers equaling, for example, 1.5 times thenumber of calls that can be routed in one second.

In FIG. 6 and the accompanying descriptions above relative to FIG. 6, asingle router was described, referred to as router 510. In alternativeembodiments of the present invention there may be more than a singlerouter instance. There could, for example, be a router operable at eachof the switches 501, 502, and 503 shown operating either on processors514, 515, and 516, or, if the switches permit, on the switches. Inanother alternative router 510 could be connected to other routers inother locations not shown, and these further routers may be connected toother switches at other call centers, and so on. In these alternativeembodiments, incorporating multiple routers, individual routers maynegotiate with other connected routers, delivering messages, uniquedestination numbers for routing, unique call ID, any data attached tothe original call or retrieved based on data attached to the originalcall, so the other routers may perform continued or additional routing.

The Spirit and Scope of the Invention

It will be apparent to those with skill in the art that there are manyalterations that may be made in the embodiments of the invention hereindescribed without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.Many individual hardware elements in the invention as described inembodiments above are well-known processors and data links. Theconnectivity, however, of many of these elements is unique toembodiments of the present invention. Moreover, many of the functionalunits of the system in embodiments of the invention may be implementedas code routines in more-or-less conventional computerized telephonyequipment and computer servers. It is well-known that programmers arehighly individualistic, and may implement similar functionality byconsiderably different routines, so there will be a broad variety ofways in code that unique elements of the invention may be implemented.Also, the invention may be applied to widely varying hardware andsoftware systems, and to both conventional telephony calls, or toInternet protocol calls, or to calls made by data mechanisms in any dataenvironment, be it Internet, Intranet, or other. Further, the linksbetween processors running T-Servers at the call center level andprocessors running T-Servers at the network level may be done in avariety of ways as well. to the associated equipment may be done in anumber of ways, and there is a broad variety of equipment that might beadapted to provide the servers 223 and 224, and other such serversassociated with call centers. There are similarly many other alterationsinn the embodiments described herein which will fall within the spiritand scope of the present invention in it's several aspects described.The invention is limited only by the breadth of the claims below.

What is claimed is:
 1. An Internet Protocol Network telephone (IPNT)call processing system routing incoming IPNT calls to selecteddestinations, comprising: a first processor for collecting andprocessing information regarding operations of remote IPNT call centersin the call processing system; an Internet routing server, connected tothe first processor, for routing IPNT calls; and a database connected tothe Internet server for receiving and storing processed informationabout transactions at the remote IPNT call centers; wherein the Internetrouting server selects destinations for routing incoming IPNT callsbased on the stored processed information about operations at the remoteIPNT call centers.
 2. The call processing system of claim 1 wherein theInternet routing server receives the processed information in TCP/IPprotocol over the Internet.
 3. A method for routing an incoming IPNTcall to a selected destination, comprising steps of: (a) collectinginformation by a first processor at an IPNT call center regardingoperations of the call center; (b) processing the collected informationat the first processor; (c) transferring the processed information to adatabase associated with a second processor for intercepting and routingincoming calls; (d) receiving an incoming IPNT call at the secondprocessor; (e) retrieving the processed information from the database;and (f) selecting a destination for the call based on the processedinformation retrieved.